


Periastron

by splash_the_cat



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Kid Fic, Kidnapping, Off-screen Character Death, Stargate Program reveal, au after season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 10:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7043716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splash_the_cat/pseuds/splash_the_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After learning of the loss of the rest of SG-1, Teal'c finds himself once again torn between his two worlds, but he is not alone in his grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Periastron

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this sometime during S7, and dug it out of my files last year intending to amnesty it, as I has no idea where I'd been going with it. 7000 additional words later, I clearly figured that out.

_Periastron: The point at which two stars orbiting each other in a binary star system are closest together._

 

Teal'c's footsteps rang on the Gate room ramp, the clatter-clang loud in his ears after the quiet of deep night on Chulak. The lights, too, were a harsh change, harsher than he remembered, washing out the milk-pale face of General Bradford, who stood at the base of the ramp.

"Tea'lc. I'm so sorry." Bradford held out his hand, flexing his fingers. He dropped it limply back to his side when Teal'c only pushed back his hood and inclined his head.

"I must thank you for making the effort to contact me."

"I wish it were for happier reasons. I think everyone's still a little rattled." An understatement, to be sure. Bradford himself, whom Teal'c remembered as a hale, ruddy mountain of a man, wavered wan and shrunken under the Gateroom's bright floodlights. Even in all his years presiding over the Stargate's care, General Hammond had never appeared as drained as Bradford now did.

"What happened?" Teal'c followed Bradford up the stairs and through the control room. Despite all else, it had not changed in the three years since Teal'c had last set foot on Earth. The familiarity of it all settled in him like a bone-deep ache, even as he recognized none of the faces scattered along their path.

"SG-34 found a pocket of Replicators out on the far edge of the galaxy. They'd converted an entire inhabited solar system and were working their way out. The Ancient device wasn't working, even after we sent O'Neill out there, so Colonel Carter decided to try an Asgard trick and collapsed the system's sun into a black hole. We think the Replicators infiltrated and damaged their ship. They never made it out of range of the initial supernova."

Cold filled Teal'c's chest. "And what of Daniel Jackson?"

"The Prometheus picked him up from Atlantis and brought him to the location to assist with activating the device."

The implication took a moment to process; he could not face the fact of all of his friends were gone, gone in an instant.

"Allowing the replicators to gain such a foothold would have been disastrous," Bradford continued. "Colonel Carter calculated that at the rate the replicators took that system, they'd have the resources and energy to  
reach Earth in less than a month. They saved us all. Again."

Teal'c hands, tucked into the sleeves of his robe, clenched tight, and the only reply Teal'c could make to that was, "Indeed."

*****

The child seated at the head of the conference table was taller than Teal'c remembered, childish plumpness fading into the slender gawkiness he imagined of her mother at the same age. Eight now, he believed. He had let too much time pass since his last visit to Earth. Hindsight, Daniel Jackson would have called it. Teal'c called it shameful.

Bradford tapped at the glass with the pad of his finger, blunting the sound. They stood in his office, watching her through the windowed wall. “We brought her down here two days ago. She’d been staying with a neighbor, but they had to leave on a family emergency. I just didn't know what else to do. Carter and O'Neill had made sure they were never both offworld at the same time, but this..."

This. This empty space, this gaping wound. “What of Cassandra Fraiser?”

“Well, she was listed as next of kin after Dr. Jackson, but none of the contact information they had listed for her is current. We’re trying to track her down.”

“And Colonel Carter’s brother?”

“His wife is ill. Cancer. It's end-stage, terminal. And... I don’t think he’d spoken to Colonel Carter or O’Neill for a while." Bradford's fingers splayed against the glass, his mouth dragged down into a deep frown. "This isn't widely known, but the program is going public soon, Teal'c, and the President wants to acknowledge SG-1's contribution. The press'll be on her like vultures - orphaned child of planetary heroes? It's a golden opportunity for a story. Bregman - you remember him?"

"Unfortunately." The long-blunted grief of Dr. Fraiser's loss welled anew amid the tumult in his heart.

"He's ever so graciously agreed to leave her out of the initial news break he got as part of his original agreement with the Air Force, but I don't think that's going to keep her out of it for long." Bradford sighed. "I know you have other responsibilities, to put it mildly, but I just... she's a kid whose lost everything, and she's one of ours. She needs someone who understands. Who knew _them_."

The shared obligation inherent in that 'we" was not lost on Teal'c. "You did the correct thing, General, in contacting me. I will accept responsibility for her."

*****

The girl did not look up as Teal'c settled into the chair next to her, intent on the yellow legal pad and an expensive-looking fountain pen that Teal'c assumed came from the set on Bradford's desk.

"Lauren Carter."

She had arrived in the world just over one year after SG-1 disbanded. With O'Neill forced into retirement due to injury, Teal'c's need to lead the Jaffa and the newly revivied Daniel Jackson's desire to join the expedition to Atlantis, Samantha Carter had elected to take command of SG-8. While Teal'c had not been surprised by that, or the relationship she and O'Neill openly began in the months after, the letter from O'Neill announcing their impending parenthood had come as a shock. Still, when he returned for the child's birth, he saw that Lauren brought a sense of peace to O'Neill, and Samantha Carter, while she sometimes looked upon the infant as if shocked by her part in its creation, she clearly and fiercely loved the girl.

The soft scratch of the pen stopped, and he watched a blotch of ink blossom on the page as she dug the tip into the paper. She had Samantha Carter's pale hair and fine hands, and her jaw, clenched in concentration, spoke of strongly of O'Neill.

"Hi, T." And the pen started to move again.

"You remember me."

"Duh. I wasn't a baby when you came last. And Dad talked about you a lot, for a while." Tiny flowers bloomed down the side of the page. "Are you here to take care of me?"

"For now. They are attempting to find Cassandra Fraiser. Do you have any information as to her location?"

Tiny shoulders shrugged. "Cassie stopped coming to see us a couple of years ago. She had a big fight with Mom. She emailed me for a while, sent postcards, but I haven't heard from her in like a year. Mom said she we should be patient, that she was working out some stuff. Mom..." A soft breath escaped her, a tiny hint of a sob that she sucked back down before furiously scribbling more flowers across the page.

"I am sorry for your loss."

"Yeah, that's what everyone's saying." She dug the pen through her line of meticulous flowers, scoring the delicate petals with a jagged, heavy line. "I just want to go home. Can we go now? Please?"

****

The vehicle Teal'c received was a rental, signed to him for the next two weeks. He slid into the driver's seat and gripped the wheel. It was Samantha Carter who had taught him to drive, and he remembered that she once said she would teach him to drive a real car one day, something sleek and fast. A skill she would now never have a chance to pass on to him.

Lauren stared at him as he selected the correct key and started the car. If she sensed the tumult of his thoughts, she said nothing. But she did ask, "What about the Jaffa?"

"Bra'tac leads in my stead. They are well in hand in my absence."

They traveled a few more miles, just coming off the mountain when Lauren said, her voice so small, "Are you mad?"

Teal'c risked a quick glance away from the winding road to her pale face. "Why would I be angered?"

"Because you had to come here and deal with me. I mean, Mom always said we couldn't see you much because what you were doing was important. And now you had to leave and come because of me."

"I do not harbor any anger, Lauren Carter." It wasn't precisely true - his anger was there, held deep, contained but slowly boiling. Anger at the replicators, at his comrades, unreasonably, for their desertion. But none for this child, who held herself as if she were to disappear at any moment. "It is my honor, Lauren Carter O'Neill, to stand with you at this time. You are family."

"Okay," she said. "Okay."

****

O'Neill's familiar house came into view, and a familiar figure stood on the porch, rushing down the steps and stopping as if yanked back by some tether. When Teal'c braked to a stop, Cassandra Fraiser jolted into motion again, covering the last steps at a run, and embraced Lauren almost before the girl finished climbing from the car, holding her for so long that Lauren began to squirm and eventually broke away from Cassandra with a shove.

Cassandra's arms fell to her sides and then she curled them around herself. "Sweetie, oh god. I am so sorry."

"Yeah, me too." Lauren shot a glance at Teal'c before she yanked her backpack and the duffel she'd had at the SCG from the car. "I'll be in my room, Teal'c." And she was gone, pounding up the porch steps, front door slamming behind her after she unlocked it and vanished inside.

Teal'c watched Cassandra watch her go, saw Cassandra's shoulders jerk at the sharp retort of the slamming door. She turned to Teal'c a moment later, blinking for a moment under his scrutiny.

"Teal'c, it's good to see you." The greeting ended on a sob and Cassandra flung herself into his arms, clinging to him as tight as she had to Lauren.

Teal'c rested his hand upon her head. "And you, Cassandra Fraser." He held her there until the shivers and shaking subsided, leaving only the slight heave of her chest as she tried to catch her breath again. She attempted to discretely wipe tears and mucus away with the back of her arm and Teal'c led her into the house. She pulled away from him once inside and disappeared into the bathroom, emerging some long minutes later with her face scrubbed clean.

"Your whereabouts have been of some concern," he said once she had taken a seat in an armchair, curled defensively against the high back.

"I do a lot of non-profit work in developing countries. A lot of travel with less-tan-reliable contact. I only got the message about what happened yesterday, and I grabbed the first flight I could. Have you been here since-"

"No. I arrived only today. The news took some time to reach me. Lauren has been attended to by a neighbor, with support from the SGC."

"Thank god." Cassandra burst to her feet, tension uncoiling with a snap as she paced the room. "I mean, I thought they'd decided to never be offworld together, just because of that!"

Teal'c swallowed resentment at the scorn in her voice. "Circumstances did not allow that arrangement in this case."

"Circumstances?" Bitterness strangled the word. Cassandra stilled in front of the mantle, lifting down a picture of O'Neill, Samantha Carter and Lauren. "What circumstances could make them abandon her?!"

Teal'c forced himself to speak gently, despite his sudden surge of anger. "The kind where had they not, Lauren's life, and yours, and everyone on Earth's would have ended in short order."

"Oh." Cassandra deflated as quickly as she'd puffed up. She sank down onto the couch next to Teal'c, clutching the picture. In that moment it was all too easy to remember her as she had been at Lauren's age, lost and alone. "I just assumed... I mean, Sam still went out there, and sometimes it just felt like they just couldn't let go of SG-1."

"Lauren told me you and Colonel Carter fought. Was that the topic?"

"Oh, now it all seems so useless, so senseless. It was… it seemed like she was always at the SGC and after Lauren said something to me about Sam missing her school play because she was working, I got angry. I… confronted Sam and I told her she was making a mistake putting the SGC before Lauren, that she... was being a bad mother. I didn't mean it the way out came out, but I think she was resentful of Lauren, and I asked Sam if she wanted Lauren to go through what she had, not having a mother around. She told me to get the hell out of her house and not to come back." Hurt and guilt sharpened the edges of her tale, and she faced Teal'c at the end, chin jutting defensively.

Teal'c held perfectly still, as if trying not to spook a skittish animal. "Do you still bear ill will against Colonel Carter for not accepting you into her life, and instead allowing Doctor Fraser to take on your care?"

"What? No!" Cassandra's illusion of righteousness shattered and she wilted into herself. "I don't know. Maybe." She dropped her face into her hands. letting the picture slide free. "I just wanted Lauren to be happy, to not lose everyone like I did."

Teal'c caught the photo before it crashed to the floor and set it aside. "I have little standing to speak of such, given my own parental failings, but I can assure you that while you may not have found her method appealing, Samantha Carter did indeed make her decisions with Lauren's welfare in mind."

"But..."

Gently, Teal'c tipped Cassandra's chin up; her face was once again streaked with tears, and the bleak look in her eyes broke his heat, and chased away any last irritation at her reaction. "Imagine knowing what you know of the universe and the threats that face this world, and deciding to turn your back on them to always be present for your child. Do you truly believe Samantha Carter would have found that the best way to mother Lauren?"

"But why even have her, then?"

Despite the urge to defend his friends, to deny her words, Teal'c ached for her; these hurts clearly ran deep, and Cassandra had lost so much, again. She needed the opportunity to lance these deep wounds, not his judgment. "Did you ask Dr. Fraiser why she adopted you, despite her role at the SGC?"

"That's not fair, Teal'c." Tears welled and she blinked hard. "That was different."

"Was it, truly? She faced almost as many risks as Samantha Carter." Teal'c took Cassandra's hands, engulfing them in his. "I understand the decisions Samantha Carter made because I too, made those choices. I chose to leave my child in hopes of making him a world where he would be free of tyranny, where he would not have to make the same choice for his children. And I live with that, and what it has done to our relationship, and it pains me every day. And I would make the same choice again, so that my son would not die under the yoke of the Goa'uld." Tears spilled freely down her face now, and Teal'c gently wiped them away. "Why love in the face of despair? Why should they give up everything for this world and enjoy nothing of it?"

She sagged against him. "I just... Teal'c, am I a terrible person?"

Teal'c stroked her hair, as he has seen Dr. Fraiser do when Cassandra was still a child. "You are a child who lost a world, a woman who has lost two families. Your grief and your anger are valid, Cassandra Fraiser, but do not let them consume you, or your memories of those you loved."

Cassandra used the hem of her shirt to wipe her face, glancing toward the staircase. "She hates me."

"I believe she is overwhelmed by many emotions. But indeed, she is angry, with you, and with everyone, right now. It should not be taken to heart. She too, hold valid grief and anger that must be allowed excision."

"What happens now?"

"We will need to discuss the arrangements made in the wills regarding Lauren's care. We are both listed as next of kin."

Cassandra's hands shook as she said, "I should take her. I mean..."

Her words twisted in his chest. He should stand aside and allow exactly that. He had more than this one child to tend to, such greater responsibilities, and Cassandra was far more suited in many ways to raise Lauren. But he saw Cassandra, not much older than Lauren was now, clinging to Samantha Carter's leg. Saw the same unease, the same hesitation he had seen in Samantha Carter when he'd suggested she play the part in which Cassandra now tried to cast herself, and pushed away the doubt. That cycle had been broken before it ever began, and he overstepped no boundaries.

And he when he saw Lauren he saw them: in her eyes and mouth and hands he saw O'Neill, in her set of her shoulders and the calculating, clever gaze that measured and considered all things he saw Samantha Carter, and in her manners and curiosity he even he saw Daniel Jackson.

He had failed them, even though he knew logically that was not true, he felt it so deep in his bones he ached with it. But here, was a chance at a different path, a redemption, and a promise paid. She was, as he had told her, family.

Teal'c pulled Cassandra to him, and she curled into him with a sob of relief when he said, "No. It is right I do this."

******

Rya'c stood at the foot of the dais below the Stargate when Teal'c stepped through the event horizon. Chu'lac's summer warmth was a welcome change from the chill of the SGC, but it did not seem to break through Rya'c's cool nod as he spun on his heel and strode off as Teal'c fell into step beside him.

"Lauren Carter fares well?" Rya'c eventually asked as they wove through the busy streets. Chu'lac was the most recent success of the Jaffa's plans to expand, still more outpost than city, but that changed daily as Jaffa took up hammers in place of weapons, building and creating. Seeing it happen here, the beginning of so much chaos in his life, lifted his spirits most days. Now though, it was difficult not to think of O'Neill and his outstretched hand that Teal'c would never again have a chance to clasp.

"As well as can be expected under the circumstances."

"And you?"

"The same."

Ahead the tall spire of the Assembly Hall pierced up into the bright sky. The roof still needed some panels, but it stood strong, a home for discourse, for the exchange of ideas. A beacon to the Jaffa, Teal'c hoped, not just as a people fighting for their freedom, but as a people _living_.

"You blame yourself." It was not a question.

Teal'c slowed as he broke away ascended the stairs and entered the cool dimness of the hall, allowing Rya'c to catch up with him. "I have lived in two worlds for these many years now, and I believed I could have both. But now... I was not with them, and they are gone."

"What would you have done? Died with them?"

He had always known that he would outlive his human friends, but not like this, never like this. "Yes."

Rya'c shook his head. "Why are you here, Father?"

A simple question, but one so fraught that for a moment, Teal'c wished to flee rather than face this battle. "To discharge my obligations."

"Is that what I am, an obligation?" There was a veneer of humor over the words, but the hurt, the cold, that was still too evident to Teal'c, had been for all these years, despite the new bonds they had worked to forge. As he has said to Cassandra Fraiser, Rya'c's hurts were valid and deserved voicing.

Teal'c grasped Rya'c by the shoulders. "No. You are my _son_. Always and forever, despite how poorly I have managed to convey that. I can state that I did this so you could grow up free of the yoke of the Goa'uld, but I know now that after a certain point it was little more than an excuse, because I was a coward who could not face you, or your mother, and the damage I had done. I claimed my silence, my absence was to protect you, but it was in part cowardice. For I did not know how to be a father to you, and when I did, I feared you no longer needed me to be one.."

Rya'c ducked his head, refusing to meet Teal'c gaze. "Would you do it again, Father?"

"You know that I would. But I hope I would do it better, with more care for those I claimed to do it for." Teal'c sighed. "You once told me that I was too bound to the war with the Goa'uld, too bound to the past. And I know now that you were right. And I am well aware of how many other Jaffa already feel that I am irrevocably sundered from our cause due to my ties to the Tau'ri, but I have given up much for this, and cannot just leave with no recognition of that.

"I have no right to ask any boon of you, my son, but will you do this for me? Will you take my place on the council?" Rya'c's head snapped up, his eyes wide. "Will you finish what I cannot, and lead our people into the next stage of their lives?"

Rya'c stared at him. "I... I am not ready for this."

"You are. More so than I was to follow O'Neill. You are a man grown. You are respected, strong, and fair. I can think of no one better suited to lead the Jaffa into the future."

"What will you do?"

"I will return to Earth," Teal'c said, "and take Lauren Carter into my care. And I will be your father, and nothing more than that."

Rya'c knocked Teal'c's hands from his shoulders, only to throw himself forward into Teal'c's arms.

******

  
Back on Earth Teal'c sat in the conference room of the SGC with a lawyer and a recently-promoted Colonel Paul Davis, and signed paper after paper, the resulting two-inch stack of documents declaring him the executor of Samantha Carter and Jack O'Neill's combined and individual estates (and Daniel Jackson's as well), and also Lauren's legal guardian.

An airman drove him and Colonel Davis to Lauren's school, where they sat down with the principal, a Ms. Jacobs, who was kind but firm, and only said "Oh, my God" three times when, after she signed the confidentiality agreement, she opened the abbreviated version of the Stargate Project declassification file Colonel Davis slid in front of her.

"It will be public soon," Teal'c said, "but given the security implications for Lauren Carter, I insisted that you be made aware now." Colonel Davis frowned through his pleasant, pasted smile; Teal'c did not envy the challenges he would face in the coming weeks, but he had remained adamant - Lauren Carter's safety was his first priority, and he was not above wielding his status as the last remaining member of SG-1 and dignitary of the Jaffa Nation to ensure it by any means necessary.

Then it was his turn to sign more papers, and review more files, these of a more mundane nature, and after, Ms. Jacobs escorted him down a series of long hallways. A bell pealed and children exploded out of the rooms as its echoes faded. Amidst the din, Ms. Jacobs leaned close and said, "Will she be all right?"

"I will endeavor to make sure of it," Teal'c said, and Ms. Jacobs held his gaze for a long moment before granting him a tired nod and leading him on to Lauren's classroom.

Lauren lingered there, in the back, slowly tucking her things into her backpack as her classmates abandoned the room like frantic kernels of corn popping free of a pan. She turned when she heard Ms. Jacob's introduce him to her teacher. She remained there, watching, as he made the necessary pleasantries and confirmed his contact information, only slowly approaching when both Ms. Jacobs and her teacher exchanged a look and left the room.

Lauren crept up the aisle between the desks, backpack slung over one shoulder. "You came back," she said, so quiet, co curled in upon herself that he had to lean down to hear her.

His heart broke when he realized that she had not expected him to return. "Lauren Carter," he said, "I cannot promise you that I will outlive you, and I will not lie about that to comfort you. But I can say as long as there is breath in my body, I will return to your side."

Her backpack slid to the floor and she flung herself into his arms, just as Rya'c had done just a day before, her small fingers digging into his shoulders. She shook but made no sound, and when he eventually eased her loose, her eyes remained dry. "Can we go home?"

Teal'c picked up her backpack, and took her hand. "Indeed."

*****

Teal'c unpacked his few belongings in the small guest room. A box in the closet held more of the things he'd collected in his years on Earth and left in O'Neill's care before he returned to the Jaffa. The room was neat and spare, reminiscent to his quarters in Cheyenne Mountain, and he carefully placed a few candles on the dresser, and filled two shelves of the little bookcase with the collection created by years of gifts from his friends.

Settled as he felt he would manage himself, he found Lauren in her room, schoolbooks abandoned across her bed she carefully etched fractal designs onto a drawing pad.

"Your artwork is very precise," he said.

"Mom and I used to do these a lot." She sat up and capped her pen. "What now?"

"Dinner," Teal'c said. "I find I sorely miss Hank's BBQ. Is this acceptable to you?"

"As long as we can order pizza tomorrow."

Teal'c held out his hand, and Lauren slid off her bed to reach out and take it. He shook it solemnly. "We have an accord, Lauren Carter."

It was a promising start, but in those first weeks they both foundered, both out of place, too many ghosts drifting between them for comfort. Some of those days he found Lauren too quiet, too old for her skin. And on others, she was an eight-year-old girl with all the prepubescent dramatics thereof. But too, there were moments of two lost souls finding, for a brief moment, shared tranquility and comfort.

Teal'c had gained custody of Colonel Carter's beloved Volvo, and sitting behind the wheel as he started the vehicle he could not help but glance to the passenger seat. She had taught him to drive in this car, had sat there and laughed with him, not in cruelty or malice as he learned to coordinate his limbs in new contortions, this technology so astonishingly obsolete to his mind that he did not understand her affection for such a contraption.

But once he had gained the knack of it, and pushed the vehicle smoothly to its limits with Samantha Carter's enthusiastic encouragement in his ear, he was less concerned at the how and why, and only that he now shared this with her, that this moment something of theirs, something she loved that she gave to him, gladly and willingly.

"Teal'c?" Lauren sat in her booster in the back, head cocked quizzically when he looked in the rearview mirror. Something she had entrusted to him, something so dear to her.

"Are you secured?" He could see she was; he spoke the words only to forestall the grief that threatened to spill from his throat.

"Aye, Captain," she tossed him a precise salute and he answered with a nod and engaged the vehicle, and once free of the residential area of O'Neill's neighborhood, smoothly broke the speed limit, Lauren laughing in the backseat.

She directed him to Target, and he purchased accouterments to fit his new life: clothing, shoes, extra bedding for his room. Lauren Carter proved very direct in her opinion of his sense of fashion, vetoing and approving items with a studied air that was subverted by her goading him toward an increasingly ridiculous selection of hats.

As they trundled toward the checkout lanes to make his purchases, she dragged the cart into an aisle and plucked a box from a shelf - candles, an electric variant. "LEDs," she tapped the box. "They're safer," she said, shyly adding, "and they change colors."

He made a show of studying the box. "They will suffice for my needs," he said, placing them in the cart, and received a brilliant smile as Lauren grabbed the cart and charged back down the aisle with it.

*****

  
Six weeks after they had settled into a tenuously comfortable routine, Teal'c's phone chimed receipt of a text message. _Sorry. The president decided to move up his address. We only found out an hour ago. It's in 30 minutes_

Teal'c called Ms. Jacobs as he sped across town, and she was waiting with Lauren in front of the school as he arrived.

"I told her, and your Colonel Davis called as well," she said, bundling Lauren into the backseat. "I'll brief our staff with the information he's given me, and we'll go from there." She leaned into the car and kissed Lauren on the forehead, her smile tight and thin. "Good luck," she said before she shut the door and hurried back inside.

"What did Ms. Jacob's tell you?" He kept one eye on on her though the rear-view mirror as he eased the Volvo back out onto the street. She sat curled in her booster, backpack hugged to her chest, her face pale but features set in resolution as she stared at the mirror.

"That the president was going to tell everyone about the Stargate today." She tipped her head to stare out the window, ending any further discussion he thought, until she said, so quietly he could hardly hear, "Teal'c, what's going to happen?"

Platitudes welled in his mind, a mix of Bra'tac's solid wisdom and the more cutting words favored by her father. But he had sworn he would not lie to her, and so he simply said, "I do not know."

Lauren charged into the house as soon as they pulled into the driveway. Teal'c secured the Volvo in the garage, swept the immediate area of the house with a critical eye and seeing nothing yet out of the ordinary, followed her inside.

She was already seated on the floor in front of the television, shoes kicked off to the side, remote clutched in her hands as she skimmed through the channels. She'd cycled through them all twice when a red banner with "Breaking News!" began to flash across each. Teal'c gently plucked the remote from her fingers and put the television on a local affiliate for one of the major networks just as President Hayes appeared, stepping up to the podium in the Rose Garden.

"My fellow Americans," he began, and immediately stopped. The murmur of the press in the room became audible until he waved a shushing hand at them. "I'm going to go off script here, for a moment. When I first learned of what I am about to tell you, that the world as I knew it was so small and insignificant in some ways, I was awash in anger and fear, the kind that drives people to judge too quickly, to make decisions they will later regret. So I beseech you to be more mindful than I was, and to remember that for the eight years I have been in this office, and for years before that, brave men and women have given their lives, and so much more, to protect us from unimaginable dangers. Remember that. Do not throw away their sacrifices."

He took a breath, and said, "Today I and other world leaders are tasked with bringing to the public the existence of the Stargate Project. In 1928 archaeologists uncovered a device..."

They watched the news coverage for hours: the President's one-hour press conference announcing the program's existence and history, followed by replays of similar addresses being made by world leaders across the globe. Then there was Brigman's updated documentary, followed by endless reports and commentary, most of it stumbling and stunned.

Lauren watched it all with wide but distant, dispassionate eyes, as if she were someone learning all of this for the first time. Much of it was new to her, Teal'c realized. General Bradford has said she was told a very basic outline of the truth when she was taken to the mountain. But still she observed the media frenzy as if she were entirely unconnected to it, as if it touched her life only in the abstract.

Around dinner time he urged her onto the couch and pressed a bowl of macaroni and cheese into her hands. She ate it mechanically, setting the bowl aside when she finished, but the spoon remained gripped in her fist. She licked it clean, twirling it in her fingers. "Are they telling the truth?"

"As much as they have been given." The speculation ran rampant of course, but the primary sources presented by the White House and Homeworld Security were correct, if severely abridged.

"Will you tell me, Teal'c, what they aren't telling everyone?"

Teal'c pushed a stray lock of her hair back from her face, from Samantha Carter's eyes and Jack O'Neill's mouth. "Fifteen years ago, your father held out his hand to me, offered to become my ally in the fight against the Goa'uld, a race of aliens who took hosts from among the many human populations that are scattered about the galaxy..."

He told her the truth, all of it, until she fell asleep, curled against his side.

*****

  
Lauren returned to school the next day. She had argued that if she were out the day after she had been pulled from class, just before the announcement, it would appear suspicious. Teal'c allowed her the victory (once he received the security detail information), for he hoped the distraction would be beneficial to her.

In the end, her absence would have gone un-noted. Seven students in her class did not show up, she told Teal'c when he picked her up from school, and similar absences in other classes were a hot topic of conversation woven around the chatter and speculation regarding the news of the Stargate. "Everyone's scared," she said, eyeing the unmarked black sedan parked down the street, relaxing at Teal'c's nod. It pleased him that she had spotted the security team.

The increased presence of police throughout the city was much more obvious. When Lauren pointed it out and asked why, Teal'c said, "Everyone is afraid."

She was quiet that night, and again the next, interested only in watching the news. Teal'c wondered if allowing her to consume that much information from such sources was the wisest course of action, but she rolled her eyes at him when he suggested they find other avenues of entertainment.

"Every channel's pre-empted for this," she said, with all the dry patience of a child convinced of their wisdom. "Besides, I've got you to tell me when they're just making stuff up."

He did regret his decision when, four nights after the president's address, the news program 20/20 did a special report on the inception of the Stargate program and SG-1.

Teal'c returned from checking the progress of their meal to find Lauren kneeling in front of the television, fingers splayed on the screen over the faces of her parents, gulping in breaths between wracking sobs. He picked her up and cradled her until she cried herself to sleep. He sat on the couch and held her for the rest of the night as the news reports scrolled across the screen.

The fights at school started three days after that, after one of her classmates, having recognized that the people discussed on TV were the same as Lauren's parents, brought in a tabloid paper that said less than flattering things about their relationship and passed it around the playground. Lauren came home with a black eye, a bloody nose, a week's detention, and a triumphant grin curling her lips. The next day Teal'c was summoned to a conference with Ms. Jacobs and the other child's parents, who stared at him awkwardly through the whole discussion and made weak, jittery excuses when he asked where their son had procured the paper in the first place.

That evening he lectured Lauren about honor and restraint, demanded she apologize to boy she'd struck, and then taught her how to properly assault an enemy combatant.

The press were a more difficult opponent. It was Colonel Davis who called with the news, his voice strained, that while Brigman had kept to his word, one of his assistants had decided that the payday for revealing Lauren's identity was too much, and had sold the information to Brigman's rival.

It quickly became apparent he'd sold more than her identity. Three news vans arrived at the house just as Teal'c left to retrieve Lauren from school, and the street was filled with them by the time they returned. He had called Colonel Davis, and they returned with an armed escort that cleared his way into the garage.

After dinner, Lauren peeked out the window, more fascinated than frightened. "Should we go talk to them?"

_"No."_

Her eyes went wide at his emphatic answer, and he gestured her to sit next to him on the couch. "For most, their interest is not in what truths we can tell them. And we do not owe them a window into our loss." He did not tell her that certain elements in Homeworld Security pushed, with increasing pressure, for himself or Lauren to allow some kind of media presence in their life. Indeed, despite the SGC's urging, he'd so far refused even the most respectful requests for interviews with himself or Lauren, and had no intention of changing his mind. Their grief was not for the consumption of a rapacious audience, and he knew it would be mined for emotional resonance, no matter the intentions.

The worst elements camped out on the sidewalk, in droves at first, but even though the numbers dwindled after the first few weeks, the press remained a constant presence, and it began to wear on them. Lauren grew frustrated, unable to play outside or go to school without cameras following her. Teal'c too, felt the drain of constant vigilance, even with the security provided by the SGC. And eventually, after Lauren awoke him with a scream one too many nights because she thought she saw faces at her window, Teal'c moved them to a high-rise apartment building with good security and a doorman who passed a rigorous background check and whose sense of self-preservation outweighed his avarice.

Once settled, they started to build a routine anew, but there were strain and distance now; the upheaval had knocked them free of the comfortable orbit they had achieved. Lauren chafed at the loss of her home, at the imposed isolation, at his constant presence. Her moods grew volatile, and she began to eschew his company, preferring to shut herself away in her room outside the barest interaction at meals and when he escorted her to and from school.

After three weeks of their uncomfortable detente, and increasingly concerned reports from her teacher showed that her malaise was not limited to home, he called Cassandra Fraiser.

 _"I'm sorry,"_ she blurted as soon as the call connected, before he even spoke. _"Is she okay? I've been watching. I should have called. I should be there. But Colonel Davis told me I should keep a low profile for now."_

"Colonel Davis knows best what is safe for you," Teal'c replied by way of accepting her apology. "Lauren is... secure." It was late and she had stomped off to bed two hours before after sulking quite dramatically over washing the dishware, so Teal'c sat on the couch and said, "Cassandra, I find that I am at a loss with Lauren. I cannot find a way to soothe her, or reach her. I fear I am not what she needs."

 _"Oh Teal'c."_ He closed his eyes at the soft sympathy that resonated in those words. _"What's going on?"_

"She is angry. The loss of her home, the loss of her freedom... It is not that I do not understand her emotions, but..." He sighed. "There are so many of them."

Cassandra laughed, but there was no rancor in it. "Welcome to teenager, the prequel."

It relieved him somewhat, that the behavior he witnessed was not a surprise to Cassandra, but it did not relieve the emotions that churned within him: the regret, guilt, uncertainty, the hollow, aching loss of so much. "I have little experience with this stage. I was gone for so much of Rya'c's childhood, I... What do I do?" he asked her. "How were you reassured that you would be cared for, when you faced the loss of everything you knew?"

Her long silence was deafening, and when she finally spoke, her voice was steady, but thick and raw. "Because you, all of you, let me be who I needed to be, even if that's was a sullen, angry kid. She'll fight, she'll rage. Like you said, she needs that, especially now. So let her be that, and love her."

So he did as Cassandra suggested, and allowed Lauren Carter the space she needed for her anger, her loss, and if he had to remind himself from time to time that her cycles of outbursts and desolation were not directed at him, that was his issue to bear.

One night as he sat on the floor of the living room to begin kel-no-reem, the LED candles Lauren had picked for him flickering through a slow cascade of colors, he heard soft footsteps creep down the hall. Lauren sank to the floor next to him, mimicking his pose. Warmth filled him and he began his breathing, exaggerating it until she picked up and matched him. Their interactions eased after that, approaching the camaraderie of those first weeks; Teal'c began to relax.

And then one afternoon he received a frantic phone call from Ms. Jacobs that Lauren had not returned to class after recess.

*******

Colonel Davis met him at the school - Ms. Jacobs had called him as well, and the security team that was assigned to the school was already searching the grounds and the locked-down building. "We have more teams en-route," Colonel Davis said before Teal'c even had a chance to speak. "We'll find her."

"Please," Teal'c said.

Ms. Jacobs reached for his hand, squeezing it tightly. "I'm sorry, I don't know how this happened."

"Do you think..." Things were better, but what if he had missed something? "Could she have left the grounds on her own?"

Ms. Jacobs shook her head. "We went through the security footage as soon as we realized she hadn't come back in. It's like she just vanished."

What that implied... "Excuse me," he said, and sought out Colonel Davis.

"You have seen the security footage?"

The look on Davis' face answered the question. "Don't panic," he said. "It doesn't mean she's been taken by anyone with capability to get offworld. There are some splinter groups of the NID that have access to limited beaming technology, and they might see her as an avenue for trading for more tech."

"That is not comforting." Indeed, cold filled his belly. He knew well that Homeworld Security would not trade the life of one small girl, even the child of the heroes they currently flaunted to their advantage, to allow any advantage to other groups on Earth.

"Go home," Colonel Davis said. "There's nothing more you can do here. If it is a ransom situation, they'll call. I'll send a team to set up recording on your phone."

Teal'c did not go to the apartment. He returned to O'Neill's abandoned house. SGC teams were already there, but they knew him well enough that they let him in, and he closed and locked the door behind him before he began a methodical search. O'Neill was paranoid, and Samantha Carter obsessed with preparation, and the closet in the spare room produced what he hoped for - a panel built into the back wall that revealed a cubby large enough to hold a trunk.

He dragged it into the room and pressed his thumb to the biometric lock that secured it. It popped open immediately. Inside were a disassembled staff weapon, four zat'nik'itels, four handguns and six magazines of ammunition for them, a GDO, five external computer drives, five disposable cell phones and what, upon closer examination, appeared to be a scanning device. He turned it on, and the screen scrolled a list of biometric data that appeared to be Lauren Carter's, before it shifted into a satellite view overlaid on a map of the area around O'Neill's house. The map image blinked and shifted again, expanding until it showed the greater city area, then the state of Colorado. A bright dot appeared in the southeastern corner of the map, pulsing rapidly as it inched its way toward the state border on a remote roadway.

Teal'c reassembled the staff weapon, took one handgun and four magazines and one of the zat'nik'tels, and one of the cell phones. He repacked the trunk and returned it to its hiding place. The cell phone, once activated, showed four numbers in the contacts list, all listed by initials. Teal'c selected the one labeled "WH."

"Harriman," said the voice that answered and Teal'c's chest swelled with relief.

"It is Teal'c," he replied. "I need your assistance."

"Hang on." After a pause of approximately fifteen seconds Walter Harriman returned to the line. "Okay, I just wanted to be somewhere I can't be overheard. I heard about Lauren. What do you need?"

"I need some kind of transportation. Access to a tel'tak would be best. I have Lauren Carter's location."

Harriman laughed.  "Oh, I can do you one better.  They built an orbital beam platform last year. Just give me your coordinates and where you want to be, and I can get you there in like ten minutes, I just need to hack the access protocols."

The scanner helpfully provided the information Walter Harriman required after Teal'c pressed a few buttons, even offering  the approximate speed the vehicle traveled and helpful intersection points. He closed his eyes for a moment and sent a thought of thanks for Samantha Carter's skill and foresight into the universe.

He gave Walter Harriman coordinates one mile ahead of the vehicle carrying Lauren.  "Got it.  Beam in 20 seconds, mark.  Call me when she's secure, and I can get you guys out."

Teal'c secured his weapons and tested the staff weapon.  It charged with a satisfying hiss.  "Thank you," Teal'c said. "I hope this does not negatively impact you."

"Don't worry about that. Just get her back. Beaming now."

The bright white light of the beam pulsed around him and when it faded he was behind an abandoned restaurant.  He used the cover of the old building to check his surroundings - it was a rural area, the road two lanes.  Limited traffic.

The live satellite feed on the scanner showed the car was not far away.  Teal'c found refuge behind a sign closer to the road and watched until he saw two vehicles in close proximity approach, that appeared to match the targets on the scanner.

They traveled at the posted rate of speed, no doubt in an attempt not to draw attention.  He swung the staff weapon up and stepped into the road.  The lead vehicle braked hard, and gunfire erupted from it.  With that confirmation they were not innocent bystanders, he fired at the front tires, sending the vehicle spinning off the road.  The second vehicle skidded to a stop in its wake, and Teal'c took out its tires as well. 

The scanner's steady beep escalated into a steady thrum as he swung it near the second car.  Two men spilled out of it, both with guns, but he quickly dispatched them, and the men who emerged from the first car, with the zat'nik'tel. When he wrenched open the back door, he found Lauren groggy and sniffling, huddled in the seat well.  

He pulled her out and she burst into tears as soon as she was free, clinging to his neck.  Teal'c settled her further against his shoulder and strode to the side of the road, where he pulled out the phone.  Eyes on the still or barely stirring forms of the kidnappers, he dialed Harriman.

**********

Walter Harriman sent them back to the apartment. 

Lauren shook and Teal'c risked one minute of their precious time to engulf her in his arms before he set her on her feet and knelt to cup her tear-streaked face.  "Pack only that which you cherish enough to carry with you," he said as she gamely brushed away her tears. 

"Where are we going?"

"I... do not know."  As much as he wished to return to his son, it would do Rya'c no favors in his work to lead the Jaffa for Teal'c to return so soon.  In a few years, when memories had fuzzed and Rya'c had matured into his role they could make Chu'lac a home, but for now, the Jaffa could not shelter them. However, he had friends not only on Earth, but among the many worlds SG-1 had visited in their years together, and indeed, it had been some time since he had seen Jonas Quinn.  Perhaps they would find a place on Kelowna.

"Somewhere we will be safer, for now," he finally said, and Lauren jerked a nod and ran off to her room. 

He packed with quiet efficiency, allowing himself to add the smallest of the colorful LED candles to his pack. When he finished, he found Lauren waiting for him in the living room with a small duffle and her school backpack.  It did not surprise him; O'Neill and Samantha Carter would no doubt have prepared her for a need for rapid escape.

"We may not return to Earth for some time," he said as he risked used the cell phone to send a short message to Cassandra Fraiser, and though her eyes remained wide and tear-filled, Lauren nodded resolutely.

They drove to the SGC in silence, Lauren huddled in her booster seat.  She'd scrubbed her face clean of tears and dirt, and Teal'c saw the shadowing of a bruise along her jaw.  He gripped the steering wheel until it creaked, and vowed that no one would stop him from removing her from Earth.

He did not expect to be allowed to do that with no question, and indeed, Colonel Davis awaited him outside the elevator on the Gateroom's level. Holding Lauren's hand, Teal'c stared him down and brushed past him.

"I can't let you do this," Colonel Davis said, jogging along behind him. "It's not safe."

Teal'c stopped and turned slowly.  Colonel Davis took a step back, and Teal'c wondered what a study his face must be.  He gestured to the bruise growing on Lauren's face, her chaffed and bruised wrists and arms.  "Is it indeed?"

Davis deflated. "Okay," he said. "Okay,  just go.  I'll get it sorted out after you are gone."

The corridors to the Control room were suspiciously empty, and Teal'c found only Walter Harriman there when the blast doors opened.  Harriman gave him a small, sad smile.  "Where do you want to go?"

"I can set the coordinates.  I can make it clear you resisted.  I would not have you penalized for assisting us."

Harriman shook his head, his eyes shining.  "I've been here since SG-1 first stepped through the Gate.  And I'll be here when you go through this time, too.  If it's the last time I do this, so be it.  It is my duty and my honor."

"As it has been mine, Walter Harriman." Teal'c held out his hand and gripped Harriman's tight.  "We wish to go to Kelowna."

Teal'c led Lauren to the foot of the ramp as the wormhole whooshed to life.  Her small, sneaker-clad feet made no sound upon it, and at its top she unhesitatingly reached out to press her palm against the event horizon, trailing her fingers in the wake of the ripples she made.  "It's so pretty."

In all his years traveling through the chappa'ais, he had never heard it described as such.  But it was true.   "It is indeed quite pleasing to the eye."

The small smile she bestowed upon him gave him great relief and pleasure.  "They, you, did this a lot?"

"Traveled through the Stargate?"

Lauren flicked a finger against the event horizon.  "Saved the world."

The wave of grief and yearning that rolled over him stole his breath away for a moment. They had. At such great costs, they had.  "Indeed."

Lauren tilted her head, still watching the ripples she'd created.  In that moment he saw her mother, like a ghost, staring in wide-eyed wonder at this amazing thing before her. He saw her father in the calculating tilt of her head.  He even saw Daniel Jackson in her boundless curiosity.  And perhaps someday, he would see something of himself in her.

"Okay," she said, taking his hand in a tight grip.  "Let's go."  She stepped through the event horizon and Teal'c followed as the world faded into brilliant light.

 


End file.
